Mysteries of the Seven Seas

Panic

He had no idea what he was doing.

What was he thinking?! Swimming from the colony wasn't a good solution, and neither was swimming from his problems! The anger he felt had drained from him once he reached the surface far from the colony and sudden realized what he had just done. All he accomplished was acting like a spoiled guppy and putting himself in more danger than he was near the island. Bigger and scarier things roamed in the deeper parts of the oceans such as great white sharks and orcas, not to mention undiscovered creatures that were in his grunkle Fords other journals which he didn't have. He ran his wet hands through his slowly drying out hair as the night breeze brushed the surface of the ocean and his face. Even worse, his sense of direction was off, he had always known that and he was dumb enough to forget that human arrow disk which told him which way the island was and which way was the colony, he was truly and utterly lost. Not to mention slightly scared, even though his eyes adjusted quickly to light, there was always a far enough darkness to scare him fishy.

Then something touched his tail.

Dipper yelped and jumped nearly three feet out of the water and splashed back onto his back, which really hurt, and swam backwards in fright. Mabel popped her head out of the water, her face consorted with worry and relief. "Dipper! Do you know how stupid of a move that was? I'm the only one who can make stupid moves!" She cried and hugged him, so hard that he gasped for breath.

"M-Mabel! How did you-?" Dipper stammered, confused and relieved to see his hatch-mate.

"I followed you dumb dumb! I know about your sneak out hole and from what I saw of your hissy fit with Stan, I could tell you were going to swim off! Now we need to head back to the colony, I'm pretty sure if we get back soon enough, Grunkle Stan won't puff up like a pufferfish like last time!" She squeaked and tugged on Dippers arm, urging him to dive down with her.

"Wait Mabel! What is going on? You seem really panicked!" Yelped Dipper. Mabel turned to him, a look of confusion, then noticed the silence of the surface.

"You haven't heard it! Oh no... Oh no we need to leave now!" She shrieked, staring behind Dipper and urging him forward forcefully.

"Mabel-!" Dipper squeaked then turned around, that's when he finally noticed why Mabel was so scared and panicked.

Looming behind him was a pitch black ship, torn white sails shinning in the darkness and golden letters on the side of the hull. It was like a shadow, moving silently and with precision, Dipper had never noticed it until Mabel spotted it and even then, it was nearly five feet from them. Then he saw the faces, covered mostly by shadows but he knew they had been watching them, and they were moving fast.

Dipper dove under the surface and was greeted by a long stretched out cry, similar to a dolphins. A siren cry, one that meant danger was very close and that they needed to gather and hide. He had never heard it because he was above the surface and the cry was meant to warn underwater merpeople and sirens of danger without alerting anything on the surface. And now he was sitting right under the danger.

Mabel caught his hand and tugged him after her, picking up speed as her fear grew. Then they slammed into something scratchy and were flung back. Fear sparked through Dippers veins and he spun around, a criss cross of rope surrounding them both. A net, they were caught like trouts and the net was pulling up, fast yet slow at the same time. Dipper quickly grabbed Mabel by her shoulders, making her face him, her eyes wide with panicked fear and her gills flaring as she took quick heavy breaths.

"Mabel, it's alright! We can get out of this!" Dipper whispered, making sure his voice didn't tremble. "We have teeth and claws! Focus on a certain part and saw as fast as you can!" Mabel sniffled but nodded, determined and quickly began to saw a piece of rope with her claws and teeth. Dipper worked on a piece close to hers so that a hole would open up once they snap it.

The seconds felt like hours, fear rising in his throat as the surface got closer and closer, feeling a sense of irony as the surface was the one thing he wasn't usually afraid of. Mabel and Dippers rope snapped at the same time and Mabel bolted through the hole that fell apart, Dipper close on her tail, until he wasn't behind her. He was yanked back, the top part of the net above water and stray parts of the rope, caught around his brilliant blue tail. Mabel sensed Dippers disappearance and twisted around, then her face dropped in fear when she saw his tangled tail. The net was above water but the rope was still stuck around Dippers flailing tail and still rising, Mabel reached him and grabbed his hands and pulled as hard as she could, but the net didn't even slow down. Dipper knew what he had to do, and he swallowed his fear and looked Mabel in the eyes.

"Mabel go get help! You can't do this on your own!" Dipper whimpered, the fear that refused to go away making his voice crack.

"Dipper I can't do that! I'll cut the rope-!" But she noticed half his tail above water, sharp pain piercing Dippers tail.

"Please! If you don't get help, if they catch you too, there will be no hope for either of us! Get Grunckle Stan and tell him it was a black ship with gold human letters on the side of it!" Only his head and hands holding onto Mabel's hand remained in the water. He did what he had to do and shoved her off of him. "GET HELP!" Was his last screech before being fully yanked out of the water, flailing and doing his best to get the rope off of his tail, but his scales were caught on them and he knew it was no use. He heard the humans before seeing them, but their voices were drowned out by the blood rushing in his ear-fins, pain spiking through his tail as it began to slowly dry. He took in a sharp breath of pain but was greeted by air instead and choked, coughing and sputtering water. He couldn't focus on what was going on around him until he fell hard on his back onto a solid surface, gravity helping make it more painful.

He managed to hear the humans scratchy English, hard to understand compared to mer-speak, but still understandably. "We actually caught it," coughed a breathless voice.

"Even after the damage it did to our net, yeesh. That took two weeks to make! Destroyed in mere seconds!" Groaned another. Dipper could only see feet and the pain he felt in his tail was unbearable, yet it felt like it was fading, probably his senses numbing. Then something touched his tail, a horrible sensation of a dry scratchy substance, and he hissed and flailed, his tail connecting to about 3 different humans legs or faces and his claws managing to draw blood from two more. It must've been one of the humans hands he realized, looking around at the people who surrounded him. Singing wasn't going to get him out of this situation, he can't command people to do his bidding when under his spell, it only lured them toward him. So he did the opposite. He shrieked a high pitched shrill at the top of his lungs, making the humans yell and stumble backwards, covering their weird looking ear fins and some even fell. He heard something shatter and took this moment to try and drag himself to the edge, kicking his tail which was entirely numb at this movement and flinging himself at the side of the boat. Then he heard a crack and pain pierced through his entire being, causing him to fall back and clutch the area that was causing the pain, his ear-fin. Dippers vision began to blur and black dotted his vision, he shakily looked at his hand which was covered in violet blood.

He heard long silent thuds as foot connected to floor. Two pointed black feet stood in front of his face.

Then Dipper passed out.

(Dipper you silly fish, you had to swim away from the only people who would protect you. Geez, now a psychopath pirate has you. You dummy. Anywho, thanks for still reading! I do enjoy seeing these children torn apart because they have to find each other eventually. Or not ovo. See you in the next chapter!)